All materials are from my personal archives, unless indicated otherwise. No items may be reproduced without permission.

Web site illustrations added to material.

The Research

“I'm working diligently on my reading, trying to get things organized in the abstract, for I have left my planning book at home, not wishing to risk either losing it or subjecting it to prying eyes,” Jim Michener wrote from Honolulu two weeks after we ended our initial brainstorming sessions in May 1978.

Michener loaned dozens of books from my library and tackled them with gusto. A few illuminating critiques of South African works read in the early stages of his research:

Wright's Burden of the Present is carefully written, makes a few good points worth remembering, and suffers grievously from not having included Afrikaans historian ... sort of like Hamlet without the prince. I found his final chapter quite pompous and self-evident: Historians should be good historians.”

 

Parker and Pfukani's high school text (History of Southern Africa) is a splendid modern summary, almost good enough for college freshmen. Devoutly one wishes it were obligatory study for students across the Republic of South Africa. (I was amused to see that the authors, like all sensible men who know their material, I should judge, come to the same organizing conclusion that we did: follow the Dutch to Piet Retief; double back to pick up the Zulu; move forward with the Trek. I wish I were working those three chapters right now.) But even this book lacks the bite which would come in showing the Dutch actually acquiring their historic attitudes.”

 

Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp (by Douglas Blackburn, a rare work of fiction Michener read while researching the novel) is one of those haughty frolics that every nation should produce in every century. It reminds me of Tomas Roucault's (sic, Raucat) Honorable Picnic about Japan, and some Englishman's Haji Baba about Persia. But I was surprised at how little additional material Blackburn adds to what one already knows if he's done considerable background study. I like his sparing but effective use of Afrikaans words and judge that each writer ought to select a few crisp ones essential to his narrative and forego the rest. But I don't think they should be given in italic. In fact, I think our list should go even further and indicate with an asterisk those Afrikaans words which have already passed into our big English dictionaries as English words. What ones they are I don't know but would guess veld, laager, trek but not sjambok, Nachtmaal, or Rooinek.

 

Becker's Tribe to Township is much too episodic for my present needs: I want distillations of encyclopedia articles! But it is perceptive, and when one is finished one has a heavy feeling regarding the impossible burdens placed upon the men and women making the transition.

Jim spent a month in South Africa seven years earlier, producing his New York Times article on the Five Warring Tribes, but the vast project now in mind made it imperative that he return and trek to the settings we envisaged for the novel. Between May and November 1978, his busy schedule included trips from Maryland to Honolulu, New York to Poland and London, Philadelphia to China, plus weeks spent shooting a TV series on Sports in America. – The weeks between July 9 to August 19, 1978 were kept open for a research trip in Africa.

I'd left my post as editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest in Cape Town the year before and moved to the U.S. with my family. I could've gone back as Jim's guide but decided instead to assign a local editor and writer as his leg man. Philip Bateman had been on my staff at the Digest and was then working as a freelancer; he'd shown a flair for history in articles I commissioned him to write for the magazine. His assignment would be two-fold: to accompany Michener on his tour and later to act as my main contact in South Africa for fact-checking and ongoing research.

The draft itinerary I suggested to Bateman embodies the kind of foot-slogging that's key to mastering a subject as vast as South Africa – or Brazil, for that matter. (See Brazil: The Making of a Novel, The Journey.)

Bateman followed these guidelines in setting up an itinerary and interviews over the five weeks. The busy schedule brought a private note from Jim's secretary, Nadia Orapchuck: “A word of caution ...Mr. Michener is 71 years old and had a heart attack about twelve years ago. He is a vigorous man, walks about three miles a day, plays tennis and we all have difficulty keeping up with him. But it is important that some time be set aside for a nap each afternoon, wherever possible, particularly in high altitude areas.”

Michener and Bateman covered nine thousand kilometers and conducted 100 formal and informal interviews. Each day Philip gave Jim a folder with photocopied articles and background information on the day's activities, locations, interview candidates.

The trip went off without a hitch, including a dash up to the ruins at Zimbabwe, driving hell for leather to catch up with an armed convoy on a road under siege in the guerilla war then raging in the former Rhodesia.  

In his letters from South Africa, Jim remained upbeat about the course set for the novel.

Jim also offered asides on current Southern African events:

“Every time a Rhodesian village is exterminated, and especially when the victims are white, the South Africans do their best to be polite to visitors and refrain from making any obvious remarks. But these things are having a profound influence, and one would really like to know if Andy Young, who is not stupid, could be onto something when he makes his wild accusations. At any rate, it ain't dull over here, not when prisoners constantly jump out of windows to escape interrogation, and when clergymen flee to escape strange laws.”

Back in St. Michaels on August 23, Michener wrote a final note on the trip: “Philip Bateman was perfect for the job and he arranged extraordinary meetings. I accomplished all I had hoped, and he is to be commended.

“He did not however, for reasons which I am not sure I understand, arrange any meetings with blacks, and this is a significant gap which must be filled by you drawing upon such black South Africans as may be in New York, or with whites sympathetic to their cause and well informed. (I met many blacks in 1971 and have met others in London, so I am not barren; but this is not good enough for a book of this nature.)"

I'd spoken with Bateman by phone before giving him the Michener assignment, mentioning a need for such interviews but saying that I wouldn't make any reference to this in written communications with him. In retrospect, I was probably being over-cautious but given the existing climate in South Africa with BOSS (Bureau of State Security) looking over everyone's shoulder, I didn't want to see Jim denied a visa that at the time he'd yet to apply for. Even he had been uncertain as to whether he'd get permission to visit the country: “I can see reasons why they might not issue me one, and reasons why they might.But I am so deeply involved with this project, and so convinced that I can do a first rate and needed job that I propose to go ahead, whether the South African government grants the visa or not; which means that you two gentlemen (Oursler and me) ought to consider how we might operate in the event that I have to do all my work from America.”

In 2001, when Dr. Barbara Helly was preparing her doctoral thesis on The Covenant, she asked Bateman about this omission and received an email with this explanation which appears in her thesis:

At the time, I was less concerned about this omission than Michener for my own background more than fulfilled his criteria as a white sympathetic to the struggle of South Africa's blacks. In fact, I'd already had my own misgivings about the representation of blacks in the novel which I set out in a note to Jim following our first meeting on September 9, after his return from South Africa.

I really think the in-depth black interviews are vital... At present the core of the book seems heavily weighted toward the Van Doorns and the Saltwoods, and the interplay between them and the Nxumalos is still very sketchy. Hopefully, the missionary—black effort will afford opportunity toward rectifying this. Still, when I look at the family trees of Van Doorn/Saltwood – against the Nxumalo one in my rough working notes – I have this sense of inadequacy.

 

Somehow, I have a feeling that what one needs do is to put aside the Van Doorns and Saltwoods and 'think' black. In other words, with all the material at one's disposal plus whatever interviews can be got, to project the entire story through the Nxumalo family. I'd be happier, for example, if I had a 30-page “rough working” synopsis on exactly the same era, placings, etc. as what now exists but concentrating solely on the black family. Then, take that and fit it against the overall Plan…

 

It wouldn't change it and much would be unsaid but it would bring the balance needed. We know, for example, how the Van Doorns and Saltwoods think, how they react to the great and s smaller events around them, how their opinions are shaped and their actions determined. We seem to be able to get inside them. I don't think this is yet the case with the Nxumalos who often seem to be on the periphery rather than – even if silent, watchful observers – in the main arena.

 

If you think I have a point here, it will probably be important that we start resolving this soon. I believe that with intelligent reading of material available and detailed interviews with as many reliable sources here, much could be achieved.

 

Considering the emphasis likely to be placed on South Africa's blacks at the time when the book appears, I think it will be very important to have it all in the right proportion.

That September meeting was important in taking stock of our progress and plans for realization of the novel, as well as deciding on specific research projects I was to undertake. My notes from the meeting provide a distillation of our ongoing working process, items like “Sable antelope,” “de-landed Boer,” “Trek,” essentially flash cards that point to subject areas I was to delve into.

In New York, I met two black exiles from South Africa, who accepted an invitation to spend a weekend in October with Michener and me at St. Michaels: David Sibeko, the “Malcolm X of South Africa,” and Bernard Magubane, a professor of anthropology at New York University. In the 1960s Sibeko worked for Drum magazine, the rambunctious parent of Post newspapers, before running afoul of the South African government and being thrown into jail. Tried and acquitted of sabotage, he fled the country and became a leader of the Pan African Congress (PAC)in exile, its permanent observer at the United Nations. Sibeko was a charming passionate man devoted to freeing his people and it was sad to read less than a year later that he was assassinated on a street in Dar-Es-Salaam.

Those three days in October were as illuminating for me as for Jim. ”It all goes somewhere deep inside to join with a personal sense of tragedy, of frustration, of impatience – and perhaps a silent guilt at not having done more than one did,” I wrote afterwards in a note to Michener. “One is not naïve: the path that they see leading them to victory is, ultimately, a harsh, violent way. Perhaps there is still a five year period of grace in which to talk, but it seems clear that by then the burden of the past will overtake present conciliation.”

Michener and I agreed on the appointment of a second legman in Cape Town, specifically to work on apartheid and black issues. Roger Kenyon, my deputy editor at Reader's Digest who'd also become a freelancer, did excellent work ferreting out material for the apartheid chapter, digging up records of some of the most egregious cases of discrimination and racism.

The in-depth research for The Covenant covered three distinct phases:

Primary

Michener's ongoing and intensive reading and his information-gathering in South Africa was supplemented by my research on special topics as with the examples from my September 9 note(above.)

In addition to these broad backgrounders, Jim began his draft by writing several crucial passages for the book. These key paragraphs were given to me for detailed analysis.

Expert Readers

As the draft manuscript emerged, copies were sent to Philip Bateman for submission to expert readers in South Africa. These went out with a covering note from Michener:

Fifteen draft chapters were sent to twenty-two South African experts, except sections dealing with apartheid which Michener and I kept close to our chests. Bateman also added his comments to six of the fifteen chapters, as well as continuing his role as our legman, providing excellent background material from the South African National Library and his own extensive historical collection.

Major critique

Jim wrote his first draft of The Covenant over eleven months between October 1978 and August 1979, sending me the original chapters as he finished them. Except for my initial comments on key paragraphs, he let me know that he wouldn't concern himself with my criticisms and suggestions until the manuscript was complete.

This is, of course, exactly how a writer should forge ahead with a rough draft and avoid the danger of being bogged down by revisions.

My exhaustive and painstaking research reflected a personal obligation to get the South African story right at a critical point in the history of my birthplace. I'd been a writer and editor in South Africa for close on fifteen years and all too often saw the facts about our past and present totally distorted, especially by outsiders.

I also knew that when the time came to review the rough draft, I would be sitting opposite James. A. Michener, a giant of American letters. If I was going to challenge Jim's words and opinions, and toss out chunks of his work, I had to be ready for the skirmishes and the bigger battles sure to follow.

Of course, I kept in mind that Michener wasn't writing a history, as he pointed out in a note before we began our work on the manuscript: “It is important for me and everyone to remember that I am writing a novel and have no obligation to cover all developments, and none at all unless they coincide with my purpose and send forward my narrative.”

These three examples show the extensive historical research behind a novel like The Covenant, or as the adage says, the ninety percent perspiration and ten percent inspiration of genius.

Primary Research

One of the first drafts Michener sent me for research was a comparison of the continents and their relationship to the various settler groups who landed there:

The Promised Land – Limited or Horizonless?

ELU Research Report, November 21, 1978

(from numerous sources; illustrations added to web site)

In a broad “sub-continental” sense, the “limits of expansion” comparison is acceptable. I'm certain you've already considered many of the comments that follow: They're of a qualifying rather than definitive revision nature. (Certainly, I begin to grasp the broader Michener vision of things and am cautious about dismantling what is essentially an enlightened, fresh perspective.)

But what worried me on successive readings of the section were some of the descriptions of the land the Dutchmen inherited: Limited and hostile; one of the world's deprived areas; the wealth which had been created in the vast temperate zones of the continents could no be duplicated in South Africa; no matter how diligently the Dutch worked, working always with a limited endowment; but did transform these deficiencies into assets. Hostile, challenging, demanding... Yes. Limited — ?

(What follows will also cover your query about the vanishing wildlife.)

An initial approach would be to try and draw a picture of what the veld looked like when those early pioneers arrived. The work of botanist John Acocks gives us a clue. His veld maps show, for example, extent of the lush, sweet grassveld in 1400 and in 1954:

Once the sweet grasslands billowed all the way from Somerset East to Bethal. Many of the first missionaries, travelers and hunters have told how they found millions of head of game grazing up to their bellies in the grass that grew tall when the rains were good, or how the animals trekked, driven by the hunger madness in the great droughts when the grass did not become lush and green.

Through the ages the grass roots helped by the cold nights and warm days and the heavy thunderstorms also “made” the soil of this plateau, which lies between 4,500 to 6,000 feet above the sea. Here Nature ‘farmed' with her wild animals and 150 species of grasses of the region. Then men came – killed the game with guns, grazed the grasses with cattle and sheep, and ploughed the soil that was mostly sandy or sandy loam. In the lands where maize grew, the soil lost the structure of crumbs given to it by the roots of the grasses and it became so sandy that it was easily washed away by water or carried by the strong winter winds. The cattle grazed far and wide and ate only the most palatable grasses so that their place was taken by harder type. The veld was also kept short by the sheep and the good grasses did not come into seed.

The second map shows the small patch of sweet grassveld left today. The place of this grassveld, which is disappearing just like the herds of game, is being taken by the Karoo type and behind this again comes the desert. At the present rate of advance the Karoo will have reached the Vaal River and the desert will be as far as Bloemfontein in 50 years time. Then we will probably have a little sweet grassveld left in the black turf soils around Standerton and Bethal.

Chapter Overview

The Trekboers

(from numerous sources; illustrations added to web site)

This example of my broad commentary on Michener's draft covers Chapter V of The Covenant, The Trekboers, nomadic pastoralists who were the forerunners of the Voortrekkers, the Dutch pioneers who forsook the Cape Colony and trekked north in the 1830s.

Chapter Line-by-Line Review

Chapter VII, The Voortrekkers

(from numerous sources; illustrations added to web site)

In my overview of The Voortrekker draft, I commented:

“Not one of characters, Tjaart Van Doorn, Naude, Bronk, Nel etc. even suggest picture of ‘frontier Boer' – i.e. the wilder, independent, hard as nails individual. What we have is picture that evokes American Centennial-type character + the Pennsylvania Dutch.

 

Unsettling frontier element isn't there, the balance between Bible-living Van Doorns and wild renegade types, which if time allowed, I'd show in 50/50 proportion, is lacking.

We have a stylized Afrikaner-heroic interpretation = Good enough for the past and Nathan (Manfred Nathan, The Voortrekkers of South Africa, 1937) but inadequate for 1980.

In addition, we have scant reference to the dominant issue then and now, i.e. LABOR.

Sure, one might argue that the American reader only needs simplistic view. But it's wrong to offer it this simply. It just wasn't so.”

My line-by-line comments on the vital Voortrekker chapter comprised fifty pages plus numerous side notes. Here is a sampling from the first seven pages of my report.

To Part Four

The Manuscript

Top of Page